Growing up in Boring, Erin Janssens didn’t dream of becoming a fire chief. Instead she considered a lot of different fields when she was going to community college — like medicine and architecture. One day she saw an opportunity to observe firefighters and told a male friend that he should do it, that it would be an exciting career. He told her if she liked it so much, why didn’t she do it? She took that advice to heart, became a volunteer firefighter in Boring and got a degree in Fire Technology. Last month, after 24 years as a firefighter, she was sworn in as the city’s first female Fire Chief. (You can watch a short clip from the ceremony here.)